During the first year of the Trump administration, the word “unprecedented” has been used so many times it has almost lost its meaning. But there simply is no other word to describe this presidency. First and foremost, there is the unprecedented degree to which the administration has attacked the country’s institutions in ways that threaten […]

On January 24, the New York Times published an opinion piece by Angus Deaton, a Nobel Memorial Prize-winning economist, in which he claimed that millions of Americans — specifically, 3.2 million to 5.4 million, depending on the poverty line used — “are as destitute as the world’s poorest people.” This is simply wrong. To the extent […]

Nearly half the residents of Louisiana have debt that has gone into collections, making that state America’s capital of past-due debt, according to a new national map of indebtedness released by the Urban Institute this week. The debt numbers are derived from anonymized consumer-level records shared with Urban’s researchers by a major credit bureau. Unpaid bills that creditors […]

In a recent survey, 56 percent of Americans said they have less than $1,000 in their checking and savings accounts combined, Forbes reports. Nearly a quarter (24.8 percent) have less than $100 to their name. Meanwhile, 38 percent said they would pay less than their full credit card balance this month, and 11 percent said they would make the minimum […]